Sepsis deaths are still high, with 50% mortality within two years

Sepsis is a life-threatening complication arising from an infection, which occurs when the body’s response to the infection damages its own tissues and organs. Sepsis causes multiple organ failure and death, especially if it is not recognised early and treated promptly. Anyone can develop sepsis, but the condition is more common in children younger than one year of age, older adults, and those with weakened immune systems. Sepsis and septic shock are life-threatening conditions with an extremely high mortality rate. Even if the patient recovers from sepsis, there is a high probability that they will die within a short period of time afterwards. According to an observational study conducted by Nielsen and colleagues in Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark and reported at the European Emergency Medicine Congress in October 2024, 50% of the patients with sepsis died within two years.

Researchers included 2,110 patients with suspected infections from 2017 to 2018, out of whom 714 developed sepsis. The patients’ mortality data was obtained from Danish registry systems. After analysing the data, they found that in two years, 51% of the patients with sepsis were dead from any cause, including sepsis. Old age was the strongest predictor of mortality. Other causes of death included significant comorbid conditions that compromised health. History of cancer doubled the risk, whereas dementia increased the risk by 90%.  

One of the challenges to sepsis management is the early and correct diagnosis of this condition. Sepsis diagnosis requires valid and reproducible diagnostic criteria that are also universally acceptable. The disease definitions for sepsis have been revised at regular intervals. The American College of Chest Physicians/Society of Critical Care Medicine consensus conference defined sepsis as a systemic inflammatory response syndrome. These criteria were revised in 2001 by expanding the list of diagnostic criteria known as Sepsis-2 diagnostic criteria. In 2015, the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine and Society of Critical Care Medicine task force members defined sepsis as life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection. Under the new consensus definition (Sepsis-3), a patient is diagnosed with sepsis if organ dysfunction can be identified as an acute change in total sepsis-related organ failure assessment (SOFA) score of 2 or more consequent to the infection. GlobalData epidemiologists using Sepsis-3 criteria forecast that the diagnosed incident cases of sepsis in the eight major markets (8MM: US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, Japan, and China) will grow from approximately 7.8 million cases in 2024 to 9.5 million cases in 2033. As the mortality associated with sepsis is very high, we need long-term follow-up and management of patients diagnosed with sepsis.